Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: The Samarth programme offers incubation, assistance with onboarding, free cataloguing marketing support, account administration, business insights, and warehousing support to small enterprises in selling their products on Flipkart’s marketplace.
Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Walmart-owned Flipkart on Sunday announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the District Administration of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, to bring local artisans, weavers, and people with disabilities of Varanasi to the e-commerce marketplace under the latter’s Samarth programme. Flipkart said products such as Banaras sarees, handmade carpets, zardoji craft, metal crafts, and handmade dari from the state will be available to its 400 million customers. The programme will provide training and time-bound incubation support for local sellers to grow their businesses online.
“Today, MSMEs are leveraging the power of technology and wider national market to accelerate their growth. Through e-commerce customers from across the country can now access the state-specific local iconic goods. MSMEs growth and digital transformation are a road to realizing the country`s dream of becoming a $5 trillion economy,” said Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma, Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of India, at the event.
Launched in 2019, Flipkart Samarth intends to benefit MSMEs, artisans and underserved communities from across the country through e-commerce. The programme offers incubation, assistance with onboarding, free cataloguing, marketing support, account administration, business insights, and warehousing support to small enterprises in selling their products on Flipkart’s marketplace.
“We are delighted to continue to deepen our engagement in the state of UP while creating lakhs of opportunities and new jobs through this MoU and expanding e-commerce opportunities to small businesses, artisans, weavers etc in Varanasi on the National Handloom Day, just ahead of the 75th anniversary of our nation’s independence,” said Rajneesh Kumar, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Flipkart Group.
Amazon’s arch-rival Flipkart had earlier signed similar partnerships with governments and public departments of Assam, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir, West Bengal and more to enable local MSMEs, artisans and weavers to sell on its marketplace.
For ease of selling on its portal, the company had announced a slew of new marketplace policies in July this year. Flipkart had launched easy settlements, simplified rate card, single final settlement value for the sellers, reduction in the Platform fee, growth programme Flipkart Ignite, business experts to handhold sellers, AI-led cataloguing support, etc.
